Sour grapes and sweet harmony : historicizing collective action problems in the South African wine industry

The article addresses how merchants and wine producers interacted while oscillating between competition and collaboration in their internal relations. Spanning a period of more than a century, it addresses three chronological periods: 1900-1940, 1940-1994, and 1994 to the present. In the first, producers were able to forge a common front against the merchants in the shape of the Koöperatieve Wynbouwers Vereniging van Suid-Afrika, which was granted devolved regulatory powers over distilling wine in 1924 and then all wine in 1940. In the second, the antagonism between good and distilling producers was sublimated at a time of relative prosperity, while the merchants engaged in fierce competition. In the final phase, the regulatory system imploded while the export market re-emerged. Quality producers found common ground in appealing to terroir, whereas marginal producers supplied merchants and supermarkets with low-priced bulk wines.